An Ayahuasca retreat could be the best experience of your life, or it could leave you worse off, confused, or traumatized. Your outcome depends upon 3 things: your readiness, preparation, and your ability to choose a high-quality retreat.
For deeper insights into what makes up a safe and quality plant medicine retreat, check out the results from our recent plant medicine retreats survey.
1. If you’d like a holistic understanding of your opportunities to improve your quality of life, take this self-diagnostic.
2. If this is your first time with Ayahuasca, this short quiz will help you assess your level of mental, emotional, and spiritual readiness for this powerful and sensitive work.
3. If you’d like to understand more about the nature of psychedelic healing work, human potential, and who and what you really are, watch the video below.
Here are 12 recommendations to help you avoid sketchy options and choose a safe and transformational experience:
Like most things in life, there are a broad variety of Ayahuasca retreat options, and a number of factors that effect the safety, quality, and cost of an ayahuasca retreat:
Safety First: Unfortunately, many small retreat centers are not in a position to make meaningful investments into screening and safety. Even if you’re fine, someone else on retreat might not be, which can affect the overall experience. Our recommendation is to choose a retreat provider that does in-depth conversational, medical, and psychological screening to protect your safety and well-being.
Legality: Experienced practitioners who have dedicated their lives to plant medicine typically live in locations where the work is legal, so they don’t have to live in a state of uncertainty about their work Our recommendation is to travel to legal locations where you can benefit from legitimate healers who operate above the radar, so you can truly relax on retreat.
Size of the group: It’s common for retreats to have 20, 50, even 100 people in ceremony, which can be chaotic to say the least. In such large groups you are less likely to receive a sufficient level of attention from the facilitators. Our recommendation is to choose a retreat with an intimate group, in the range of 8-15 people.
Length of the retreat: Shorter retreats feel rushed, do not support the cultivation of meaningful relationships, and can limit what can be achieved in time available. We recommend you spend at least a week for an ayahuasca retreat to give your mind, body, heart, and soul the attention it deserves.
Comfort: We recommend you choose a retreat where you are confident that you will be physically comfortable and have your own private bedroom to decompress and integrate, especially if this is your first time. Go for the full jungle mosquito immersion another time, your future self will thank you later.
Alignment: Select a retreat that feels aligned with your values and allows your own subjective experience to unfold naturally. There are many different worldviews out there and having a different worldview pushed on you through the retreat may not be in your highest healing interests. This is also particularly relevant for first-timers.
Holistic approach: Work with an organization that takes a holistic approach to working with plant medicine, and has options to support and guide your mental and emotional evolution alongside a retreat. If a provider implies that “medicine will solve all your problems”, proceed with caution.
Service: Select a retreat that you believe can meet your individual needs. Are you being treated as a human, or as participant #22 in their fourth retreat this month? Consider whether or not they’ve taken the time to get to know you and understand you, or it’s more of a take it or leave it retreat center.
Booking process: Take the time to speak with the provider before finalizing your booking. If the provider does not have a screening process in place during the booking process anyone could be sitting next to you in ceremony. Some people are not in the right place to work with this powerful plant medicine, and it is the responsibility of the organizers to ensure that only people who can handle ayahuasca are accepted onto the retreat.
Expertise: Find an organization that emphasizes healing, and you believe has the breadth and depth of expertise to guide your transformation. Look for facilitators and healers who have a lightness of being and a sparkle in their eyes. Healing work is all about the transmutation of energy, so you are looking for people who have the energy you aspire to. If they aren’t able to keep their energy right, that tells you quite a bit about either where they are at and their capabilities.
Reputation: At a minimum, Google the provider, you may be surprised by what you find. If there’s not much information, that is also information. A reputable retreat center will have a professional online presence with testimonials from previous retreat attendees. This is essential for you to see that they are a legitimate organization who you can trust to contain this powerful experience.
Volunteers: Please support ethical plant medicine work by selecting an organization that pay their team. Unfortunately, it is common practice for retreat centers to cycle through young, eager, and worn out volunteers and/or not pay healers fairly. If the people supporting your retreat aren’t living their best lives , they’re not going to be able to lead you to yours. Don’t be shy to ask this question directly when you speak to prospective centers.
Who you choose to attend an Ayahuasca retreat with is undoubtedly one of the most important decisions in your life, especially the first time. We encourage you to take the time and energy to do your research, follow your intuition, and to know why you are choosing a specific retreat. If our recommendations resonate with you, and you’re ready to step into your full power, we are here to guide you every step of the way.
Ayahuasca is a traditional healing tool that originates in South America. Ayahuasca tea is a psychoactive brew that has been used by indigenous people in ceremony as a sacred plant medicine to treat physical and mental illnesses for millennia during ayahuasca retreats.
The medicinal plant is used during an ayahuasca ceremony to heal the mind, body and soul. It has in recent years garnered worldwide attention from those seeking healing and solutions to their problems. Ayahuasca offers purification of the body, while providing invaluable insights into difficulties, and aids spiritual awakening.
Despite the growing awareness of the powerful healing mother ayahuasca offers, it is not legal in most countries outside of South America. The use of Ayahuasca in India is illegal as the country has very strict rules against the use of psychedelic substances. Thankfully, the use of Ayahuasca is legal in countries to which it holds cultural ties such as those in the Amazon basin. Check out our list of the top 5 Ayahuasca Retreats and Retreat Centers below!
If you’re ready to start your transformational journey and move past trauma, then look no further than Behold Retreats in Costa Rica! Here you’ll be able to heal in breathtaking surroundings while enjoying the luxury of first-class accommodation and all its amenities.
Behold Retreats hosts small-group Ayahuasca Retreats for up to 12 people at a hilltop facility, surrounded by the natural beauty Costa Rica has to offer. Your Ayahuasca Ceremony will be expertly guided by facilitators with decades of experience, allowing them to hold space for your deep healing. Retreats include therapy, coaching and plenty of time to integrate your insights in an intimate setting. Start your healing retreat journey now with an ayahuasca retreat at Behold Retreats!
Go completely off-grid and dive deep into your healing with the ayahuasca retreats offered at Soltara Healing Center in Peru. Under the expert guidance of indigenous Peruvian Shipibo healers, you can experience profound healing with multiple ceremonies during retreats spanning 5, 7, 9 or 12 nights.
The sacred plant medicine work is supplemented by 1-on-1 consultations, on-site integration, sharing circles and a variety of workshops, including yoga and pranayama breathwork. Soltara Healing Center offers a safe healing space for an intimate group of up to 13 participants to come together during an ayahuasca ceremony to release and let go.
Located in the breathtaking Andes mountains, Gaia Sagrada Retreat Center welcomes you into mother earth’s bosom to embark upon your inner journey. Ayahuasca retreats are facilitated by shamans in a safe and peaceful environment. People of all walks of life are welcome to participate in a retreat and experience the plant medicine in a magical and natural setting.
The perks of staying at Gaia Sagrada extend beyond the ayahuasca ceremony itself. From gazing up at the milky way, to watching fireflies at dusk, and from hiking to a nearby waterfall to taking in the surrounding forests, pastures and hummingbirds. You can relish in it all!
Situated in the lush Atlantic Rainforest, just minutes away from sun kissed beaches and the Atlantic ocean, is Spirit Vine. It’s an interfaith retreat center that offers both a 9 and 11 day ayahuasca retreat program. Here you can go deep safely with their alcohol and drug free policy!
An ayahuasca ceremony takes place every other night, and is interwoven with a vast selection of workshops and activities to help you better integrate your experiences with the plant medicine. There are spiritual workshops and yoga classes all set up to aid you on your journey to reconnect with your essence and higher self. There’s plenty of time to take in the beauty that surrounds you that’s not limited to the luscious green jungle and sandy beaches.
Reconnect to your mind, body, emotions and spirit at the Hummingbird Healing Center! Located near Iquitos in Peru, Hummingbird caters for up to 12 participants with 9 and 12 day ayahuasca retreats. You’ll also experience the healing power of a san pedro ceremony during the longer retreats. For those looking to go deeper, a 2-4 week retreat is also available at the retreat center.
Facilitating you on your ayahuasca retreat journey is a traditional healer with 38 years of experience! Help is always at hand during your ayahuasca ceremony, making this a safe and supportive space for your transformation. However long you decide to stay, you’ll walk away with practical advice on how to clear your roadblocks and live a life of self awareness.
The Ayahuasca Experience You’ve probably watched a few Netflix documentaries on Ayahuasca (if not, we have curated a full Top Ayahuasca Documentary Films for you here). Maybe you’ve heard about the experiences of a celebrity like Lindsay Lohan with this mind-expanding...
For centuries, South American tribes have been reaping the potential benefits of Ayahuasca’s transformative effects, and over the past couple of decades, the indigenous ancestral medicine has begun taking the entire world by storm. People from all over the globe feel...
The Ayahuasca Experience You’ve probably watched a few Netflix documentaries on Ayahuasca (if not, we have curated a full Top Ayahuasca Documentary Films for you here). Maybe you’ve heard about the experiences of a celebrity like Lindsay Lohan with this mind-expanding...
For centuries, South American tribes have been reaping the potential benefits of Ayahuasca’s transformative effects, and over the past couple of decades, the indigenous ancestral medicine has begun taking the entire world by storm. People from all over the globe feel...
